Shattered Pieces
by I-brake-for-nifflers
Summary: Years after the final battle, Ginny is living in America, where she ran after she witnessed Harry's tragic death.


_I had always been pushed aside._

_Being the seventh child never helped. That was just the price I paid for being born into such a loving home. I wonder what happened to them every moment I am awake. I never miss them._

_I won't allow myself to._

_Then I went to Hogwarts, and met Harry Potter. The boy who lived. That's what they called him, but he never did live. Not really. Between the Dursleys' and the Wizarding World, he was the most repressed person I'd ever meet in my life. _

_I loved him._

_A part of me, the part that waved a white flag behind the thick shadows of what my brothers wanted for me, attached automatically to him. We could be repressed together._

_When the chance came in my fourth year at school to help him, I jumped on it. Maybe, if I helped him save the World, he would save me. I could redeem myself for pouring my secrets into Tom Riddle's diary._

_I hate him now. _

_HATE._

_That night, before the final battle, he told me he loved me. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I wanted nothing more than to be his wife. Nothing more than to love him for the rest of my life. _

_I always have wondered if he heard me. He always had to play the hero, didn't he? Does he know how mad I was… how much I cried when he…_

…_when he died the next day?_

_He had just vanquished Voldemort, I remember all the details. Every single vivid color. All the sounds, the smell of stale blood. I see it in my dreams all the time._

_I remember him conjuring the long sword, Gryffindor's, like it was in that damned chamber. I watched him stab himself. How? How the hell could he do that to me? Leave me to cry, to wonder, and to suffer?_

_I had to run. Far, hard. I couldn't believe he had left me like that. The tears were salty, and they stung my eyes. I wasn't going anywhere, just running. I didn't wait to see if my family was alive or dead. I couldn't. I'd already lost too much. _

_I ran to my flat and changed my clothes. I left a simple note to whoever would look for me, if anybody still alive cared. It was the least I could do. I snapped my wand in half, and threw the shattered pieces into the drowsy, lazy fire. _

_I left. _

_I moved to America with the small stash of money I'd saved and changed my name. I didn't want anyone to find me. I was only eighteen. _

_After awhile, I found my own place to stay and got a job. I was a waitress, working at two different restaurants. Sometimes, I thought I heard his voice, his laugh. I was discovering the muggle world, and I thought of him every day… I still do. _

_Then I had you, James. My beautiful baby boy… I love you more than life itself. I lied to you, I know that. I wanted to protect you from all that pain, hoping and praying Hogwarts wouldn't find you. That I wouldn't have to give you to the Wizarding World, too._

_But that was all wishful thinking. I always knew that they'd pick up on your father's magic from a mile away. You got your letter, and I pretended that I had no idea you would be magical, that I even knew about that world. You were so happy, I couldn't tell you. Now that you're leaving next week, the truth will come out sometime. I know._

_So never accuse me of abandoning you. Never. Because I promise that you're much better off without me. _

_When you find this, I'll be dead. _

_I love you._

_P.S. Your name is James Potter, not James Tilton._

_I used to be Ginevra Weasley. Ginevra Potter… I changed it to Alice when I moved._

_Please, don't hate me._

Professor McGonagall felt tears run down her face as she read the suicide note Ginny had left for her son. She had recognized something in James Tilton immediately. She looked at him, and saw Harry.

She had taken it upon herself to pay a little visit to where he lived in upstate New York, U.S.A., hoping to find Ginny.

When she walked in the door of the small house she saw Ginny, but lines of worry creased he forehead, and her hair had one or two strands of grey. Probably from stress. She was sprawled on the clean carpet. She didn't have a pulse.

A bottle of muggle medicine lay empty and forgotten next to her open hand. Her eyes were open and empty. Then McGonagall found the letter trapped in the pale grip of the other hand.

She cried.


End file.
